Sleep. We need a lot of sleep. We all want sleep because we are all tired at the end of a long day. We all need sleep because we need the energy to go through a day of learning and work. However, do we all get sufficient amounts of sleep?

According to many sources, a person should receive about 8-9 hours of sleep to be able to get enough rest in order to fully restore their body for the next day, and fully become energized for what is to come. Additionally, the National Institute of Health states that in today’s fast-paced society the average person only sleeps about seven hours per night, which is below the 8 hour minimum.

Is this how much sleep kids in high demanding schools such as BSGE, whose bodies are very dependent to sleep each and every day receive? Thirty random seventh graders were surveyed, and according to those results, 7th graders, for the most part, do not receive enough sleep.

Out of the thirty people surveyed, only eight people thought that they did receive enough amounts of sleep in the school year so far. That’s right, only about 25% of the people surveyed thought they got enough sleep! These eight people all commented that they “did homework the second they got home, and did not stop from there.” Nonetheless, only 4 out of the 8 people got the advised eight or more hours of sleep.

More interestingly, from the other 22 people surveyed who claimed that they did not receive enough sleep, all but two people got below the 8 hour sleep mark. Most kids blamed it on the fact that there is a lot of homework and studying each night, and that the teachers do not elaborate on the homework enough, leaving kids having to find out what to do for homework.

Jamie T. ’20 who is a seventh grader at BSGE said that, “homework keeps me up at night, and I’m not used to this increased workload that the teachers present to us each day. There is much more schoolwork, and much more homework and studying to do everyday when I get home.”

Additionally, Gina G. 20’ adds that, “The fact that we have A and B days annoys me a little, because the teachers who see us every other day will assign more homework to us, expecting that we will get it all done in time, and produce high quality work, when in reality I also have other things to do, and tests to study for. A loss of sleep leads to you not concentrating in class, which leads to you cramming to do things at home, and at school. The whole process is a large chain reaction.”

“I hope I get better at this later on, when I get used to what is going on,” she then added.

All of this should show that even in 7th grade, which is deemed as the easiest and simplest year in BSGE, many people already do not receive the suggested amount of sleep, and so we can just imagine what occurs in the higher grades, with the additional workload.

We all need our sleep, but the question that remains is do you get enough sleep?